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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/24/david-gauke-prisoner-employment-strategy
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| Justice secretary to launch prisoner employment strategy | Justice secretary to launch prisoner employment strategy |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Offenders are to be prepared for employment from the day they enter jail under an overhaul of prison policy to be unveiled by the justice secretary. | |
| At a prison in London, David Gauke will launch an education and employment strategy aimed at improving prisoners’ skills while in custody. It will include proposals to increase the use of release on temporary licence (ROTL) for work placements, after a fall in recent years. | |
| Ministers hope the strategy will help to cut the £15bn annual cost of reoffending, as ex-offenders in employment are up to nine percentage points less likely to commit further crime. At present, just 17% of offenders are in taxpaying employment a year after release. | |
| Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Gauke said previous incidents where prisoners had offended while on temporary release had led to improvements in the system, and he argued that ROTL helped bring down crime rates. | |
| “It’s important there are rigorous assessments, but the message I hear time and again when I visit prisons is we’d like to be able to put more people out on ROTL,” he said. | “It’s important there are rigorous assessments, but the message I hear time and again when I visit prisons is we’d like to be able to put more people out on ROTL,” he said. |
| “What we do know is that if you don’t get people into work at the end of the process, reoffending is going to be higher. If we take the view we can never release anyone on temporary licence, they are in prison and have to stay in prison, you increase the risk of crime, you increase the likelihood of reoffending.” | “What we do know is that if you don’t get people into work at the end of the process, reoffending is going to be higher. If we take the view we can never release anyone on temporary licence, they are in prison and have to stay in prison, you increase the risk of crime, you increase the likelihood of reoffending.” |
| Education and training, work in custody and the availability of employment opportunities in the community are highlighted as key areas of focus in the strategy. Prison governors are to be given the power to commission education and training programmes and tailor them to meet specific labour market requirements within the prison. | |
| The strategy includes a prisoner apprenticeship pathway. which will offer an alternative means of delivering training in custody to guarantee a job on release. It also sets out how offenders will be helped to find jobs upon release, with a new organisation, the New Futures Network, working with employers to create job opportunities. | |
| Prisons and probation | Prisons and probation |
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